The Self-Made City - Global Rome: Changing Faces of the Eternal City - page 188

and proprietors of the areas and construction firms that allow and indeed en-
courage irresponsible land use.1 political weakness and the absence of an admin-
istrative culture in the face of powerful forces in Rome's planning and economy
are coupled with widespread social attitudes; these in turn are rooted in Rome's
laissez-faire urban ethos and in the “sin and be pardoned” mindset.2 The research
methodology interweaves a traditional urban planning approach with one that
is sociological and ethnographic. The informal city is analyzed through available
data from local authorities, mapping, the spatial distribution of self-built areas,
planning, urban development programming, and the policies and actions of the
government. i also take into consideration recent sociological studies, in particu-
lar by supplementing maps produced by the geographic information system with
extensive interviews. my fieldwork included “strolls through the neighborhood”
with local residents, in-depth interviews with selected witnesses or small groups
of residents, participation in public meetings, and observation of activities with-
in the district.3 This type of methodology allows one to look at phenomena both
“from outside and above” and “from inside and below,” thus permitting them to
be analyzed in more detail and depth.
The Debate on unauthorized Construction and the informal City
as well as arousing political and social concern, unauthorized construction in
Rome was the subject of intensive scholarship between the late 1970s and the
1980s (berlinguer and Della seta 1976; uspR 1981; Clementi and perego 1983; Del-
la seta and Della seta 1988). it was also in the front line of sociological research at
the national and international level (ferrarotti 1970, 1974, 1981; martinelli 1986).
The issue thus became the focus of political attention by local administrations
(unione borgate 1986). The victory of the center-left in Rome in those years was
closely connected to the effort that subsequent administrations invested in the
renewal of the working-class peripheries ( borgate ). from then on, however, the
problem of unauthorized building was no longer studied and recent works focus-
ing on the problem of Rome's suburbs (ilardi and scandurra 2009; ferrarotti and
macioti 2009) pay little attention to it. only a few publications have tried to give
a systematic and overall picture of the phenomenon today (Cellamare 2010; Cel-
lamare and perin 2010), in some cases drawing attention to it at a national level
(berdini 2010). This lack of attention is worrying. it may be true that unautho-
rized building is no longer perceived as a social emergency, yet it remains a very
important phenomenon with a major bearing on serious problems in the city and
shortcomings in urban development (land use, lack of services, inadequate and
unsustainable public transport, low urban standards, and so on).
The question of unauthorized construction, or rather of the informal city,
has by contrast received greater attention in international debate and research
(Davis 2006; Roy and alsayyad 2004; porter 2011; barberi 2010; Duhau and Gi-
glia 2008; fernandes and Varley 1998) with particular focus on large cities of